A native of Denver, Howard attended Jordan High School in Long Beach, California before transferring in his senior year to Chaffey High School in Ontario, California, from which he graduated in 1948.
His time at Redlands was interrupted by five years of military service as a flying officer in the United States Air Force.
[1] Utah lured Howard away from Long Beach State after three winning seasons as head coach there.
During his five seasons at Utah, his winning percentage of .554 was better than that of his predecessor, Tom Lovat (.152), and his successor, Chuck Stobart (.489).
[2] His final season at Utah, Howard had the Utes in contention to win the Western Athletic Conference championship, needing to win the final game against BYU to take the title.
This is a prediction: in the next two years Utah will drill BYU someday, but we won’t run up the score even if we could set an NCAA record against them."